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More News From Across The State

Elsewhere, President Barack Obama touts the health care law just days before the current enrollment period ends on Jan. 31. And the House postpones a vote on the Affordable Care Act due to a snowstorm that struck the nation's capital over the weekend.

The Contra Costa Times:
Health Care Help Ready To Go
With only one week left before the Jan. 31 sign-up deadline for a 2016 health care plan, Covered California continues to hold enrollment events throughout the Bay Area to provide consumers free, confidential enrollment assistance. (1/23)

The Hill:
President Pushes ObamaCare As Enrollment Deadline Nears
President Obama on Saturday touted the successes of his signature healthcare law, just days before the deadline for enrolling in 2016 ObamaCare coverage ends on Jan. 31. “This is healthcare in America today,” he said in his weekly address. “[It is] affordable, portable security for you and your loved ones. It’s making a difference for millions of Americans every day [and] it is only going to get better.” Obama boasted that ObamaCare is expanding healthcare options for everyday Americans. (Hensch, 1/23)

Sen. Barbara Boxer's priorities include keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and people with mental health problems, supporting research on cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and limiting e-cigarette advertising aimed at children, while Rep. Lois Capps Capps, a former nurse, wants Congress to approve her bill to reauthorize federal funding for nursing programs.

The Los Angeles Times:
Retiring California Lawmakers Talk About What's Left To Do and What's Next
With less than a year until their replacements are sworn in, California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Reps. Sam Farr and Lois Capps are checking off their to-do lists, trying to wrap up decades of work in Washington. ... Boxer said she’s been meeting with her California and national staffs to determine priorities for the year. She listed more than two dozen. They include raising the minimum wage, keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and people with mental health problems, supporting research on cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and limiting e-cigarette advertising aimed at children. (Wire, 1/22)

Los Angeles County health officials, who note that Porter Ranch residents have complained of such ailments as headaches and respiratory irrigation from an odorant in natural gas, have said past studies found only short-term health effects from the odorant. But they said continued health monitoring is needed.

Reuters:
Regulators Approve Health Study On Huge Gas Leak
Regional air quality regulators in California voted on Saturday to require the utility responsible for a ruptured underground pipeline in the Los Angeles area to underwrite an independent study on the health effects of a huge methane leak from the site. The natural gas leak in Aliso Canyon, just outside the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch, began on Oct. 23 and ranks as the worst ever in California. (Lehman, 1/23)

Meanwhile, public health officials in LA and Orange County are taking steps to prevent the illness among women there, and WHO warns that the outbreak will likely affect every country but two in the Americas.

Reuters:
WHO Sees Zika Outbreak Spreading Through Americas
The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is suspected of causing brain damage to babies in Brazil, is likely to spread to all countries in the Americas except for Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization said on Monday. Zika has not yet been reported in the continental United States, although a woman who fell ill with Zika in Brazil later gave birth to a brain-damaged baby in Hawaii. (Miles, 1/23)

Reuters:
Mondelez Settles With California Over Lead In Ginger Snaps
Mondelez International Inc has agreed to pay $750,000, improve its product sourcing and testing, and hire a food quality auditor after failing to warn California shoppers that its Nabisco Ginger Snaps contained excessive levels of lead. In announcing the settlement with the maker of Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies, California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Friday said testing revealed that a serving of the ginger snaps contained lead levels up to nine times the threshold requiring a warning under California's Proposition 65. (Stempel, 1/22)

Hillary Clinton says she just has a different way of working toward providing coverage to everyone than her opponent Bernie Sanders. Meanwhile, Bloomberg News examines her claims that "HillaryCare" was the precursor to the Affordable Care Act. And, Sanders' "Medicare-for-all" proposal would hit working seniors with tax increases

The New York Times:
‘Hillarycare’ Failed, But Hillary Clinton Reminds Voters She Tried
After weeks of criticizing Bernie Sanders’s plan for a single-payer “Medicare for all” health care system as budget busting and unrealistic, Hillary Clinton over the past few days has a new message for voters: Universal health care was her idea first. “Now, before it was called Obamacare, it was called Hillarycare, as some of you might remember,” Mrs. Clinton said at a town-hall-style event in Clinton, Iowa, on Saturday. “We share the same goal, universal health care for every single American,” Mrs. Clinton said of her rival Mr. Sanders. “But we have a real difference about how to get there.” (Chozik,1/23)

Bloomberg:
How ‘Hillarycare’ Did, And Didn't, Lead To Obamacare
Hillary Clinton is taking increasing credit for Obamacare, arguing that the 1993 health care overhaul effort she spearheaded was the foundation for President Barack Obama's plan. “It was called Hillarycare before it was called Obamacare,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in Vinton, Iowa, on Thursday, referring to her plan's derisive nickname. “I don't want to start over again, I don't want to rip up this accomplishment and begin this contentious debate all over again.” (Kapur, 1/22)

USA Today:
Sanders' 'Medicare For All' Plan May Not Help Working Seniors
Bernie Sanders’ plan to deliver “Medicare for all” may be a good deal for many Americans, but it might be bad for working seniors already enrolled in the government health plan. Under his plan, the nation’s 8.5 million seniors over the age of 65 and already eligible for Medicare would get hit with tax increases. With more of the nation’s baby boom generation working into traditional retirement years, the concern is that the costs to seniors are higher than Sanders' plan suggests. (Przybyla, 1/24)

The Wall Street Journal:
Amid ‘Establishment’ Tussle With Clinton, Sanders Affirms Commitment To Abortion Rights
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Friday proclaimed his commitment to abortion rights and to increasing funding for women’s health care, days after a tussle with rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign over whether a prominent women’s health care provider was part of the Democratic “establishment” he is challenging. “I am a very strong supporter of Planned Parenthood,” the Vermont senator said at a rally at a high school on Friday, the 43rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a legal right to abortion. “I have a lifetime voting record of 100%.” (Haddon, 1/22)

The New York Times:
Hillary Clinton And Bernie Sanders Battle For Party’s Future
The race between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders is not just about the White House anymore. It has intensified into an epochal battle over their vastly different visions for the Democratic Party. Mr. Sanders, a New Deal-style liberal from Vermont, last week became the party’s first top-tier candidate since the 1980s to propose broad-based tax increases. He argues that only muscular government action — Wall Street regulations, public works jobs, Medicare for all — will topple America’s “rigged” economy. Mrs. Clinton, a mainstream Democrat, has started contrasting herself with Mr. Sanders by championing a “sensible, achievable agenda” and promising to build on President Obama’s legacy in health care, the economy and national security. (Healy, 1/24)

Bloomberg:
Ted Cruz Finds Out He Has Health Insurance After All
One day after Ted Cruz told college students in New Hampshire that he had no health insurance because President Barack Obama's health care law caused the cancellation of his coverage, the Republican presidential candidate's campaign walked back that assertion late Friday. Contrary to what Cruz, a top contender for the GOP nomination, said on Thursday—"I don't have health care right now"—it turns out the U.S. senator from Texas and his family appear to be insured after all. (Kapur, 1/23)

The Wall Street Journal:
In Reversal, Campaign Says Ted Cruz Does Have Health Insurance
Ted Cruz has health insurance, and he had it all along, his campaign said Friday night, reversing what the presidential candidate said a day earlier. Mr. Cruz told a Manchester, N.H., audience on Thursday that he was currently uninsured — which he said infuriated his wife –after Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas canceled many individual policies, including his. As a result, Mr. Cruz said he was now looking to buy a new plan at sharply higher premiums, a turn of events he attributed to the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. Mr. Cruz has been a harsh critic of the health law. (Radnofsky, 1/22)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Cigna did not handle complaints and grievances from patients properly. The suspension will not affect those already enrolled. In other news on Medicare Advantage, a new study looks at CMS's cost predictions.

The Wall Street Journal:
Cigna Faces Halt In Medicare Advantage Enrollment
Cigna Corp. said Friday that enrollment into its Medicare Advantage and prescription-drug plans has been halted by the government, posing a challenge to the insurer as it aims to wind up its acquisition by Anthem Inc. In a letter to Cigna, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it imposed the sanctions because of problems with the insurer’s coverage-appeals process, among other issues, and the agency cited a “longstanding history of noncompliance” with requirements. Connecticut-based Cigna was also blocked as of 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday from marketing its Medicare plans. (Wilde Mathews, 1/22)

Prescription management organizations are trying to spark a price war between pharmaceutical companies, but patients could be forced to switch to a different brand of medication in the process. In other pharmaceutical news, drug shortages in ERs have spiked.

NPR:
Fight To Lower Drug Prices Forces Some To Switch Medication
Express Scripts and its rivals including CVS/Caremark and OptumRX manage prescription drug coverage for insurers and employers. They're trying to spark price wars among drug makers by refusing to pay for some brand-name medications unless they get a big discount. The result is that average costs for many drugs are falling. At the same time, consumers are being forced to change medications, sometimes to brands that don't work as well for them. (Kodjak, 1/25)

The Washington Post:
Drug Shortages In American ERs Have Increased More Than 400 Percent
Of the nearly 1,800 drug shortages reported between 2001 and 2014, nearly 34 percent were used in emergency rooms. More than half (52.6 percent) of all reported shortages were of lifesaving drugs, and 10 percent of shortages affected drugs with no substitute. The most common drugs on shortage are used to treat infectious diseases, relieve pain, and treat patients who have been poisoned. (Blakemore, 1/22)